Impact of Policy on Learning and Inclusion in the New Learning and Skills Sector
All Change for the
Learning and Skills Sector?
Ann Hodgson
Ken Spours
Richard Steer
Institute of Education,
University of London
Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, Institute of Education, University of London, 5-8 September 2007
This is work in progress. Please do not cite without written permission from the lead author.
Abstract
Using primary and secondary data collected as part of a three-year project funded under the ESRC Teaching and Learning Research Programme[1], this paper examines two major questions:
How has the organisation of the learning and skills sector (LSS) in England changed as a result of recent policy?
What implications for policy arise from these reforms?
We draw on the theoretical work of policy analysts such as Ball (1994) and Newman (2000, 2001, 2005), as well as our own conceptual work, to make sense of 15 major policy documents and over 130 in-depth interviews with European, national, regional and local policy-makers carried out during the period 2004 to 2007. The first part of the paper is devoted to a discussion of policy aims. This is followed by a description of recent reforms and their effects on the organisation and operation of the LSS, as seen through the eyes of key policy actors. The paper argues that the Government appears to have moved from the ‘planned’ and unified concept of the LSS, outlined in the Learning and Skills Act (2000), to a more turbulent, directive and market-oriented model. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of these shifts for policy and introduces the concept of a ‘devolved social partnership system’ as a possible alternative way forward for the sector.
INTRODUCTION
In the six years since 2001 when the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) was established and given responsibility for all forms of publicly funded post-16 learning opportunities outside higher education, the learning and skills sector (LSS) has been in a constant process of organisational change. Considerable sums of money have been invested, new buildings erected, high-profile national initiatives launched and new organisations founded.
Moreover, during its short life the LSC has already been through two related rounds of restructuring. As we describe later, the first reorganisation was in 2003/4, which saw significant downsizing of central staff and the establishment of a regional layer of management. More recently, the LSC has also reorganised its 47 local LSCs into much smaller ‘partnership teams’. The division of the work of the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) between two new ministries – Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS), allied to a third Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR) – heralds a period of considerable uncertainty regarding the scope and role of the LSC, although major practical changes will not occur before 2010.
Here we analyse the effects policy has had on the LSS, or what the Government now terms the ‘FE System’.[2] On the one hand, the Government has placed a far greater priority on learning and skills than the Conservatives, because of its central role in economic competitiveness and inclusion. On the other, the price of attention has been close scrutiny and unrelenting policy intervention.
Our definition of and stance towards policy has been underpinned by the theoretical work of policy analysts such as Stephen Ball and Janet Newman. Ball’s concept of the ‘policy trajectory’ has informed our approach to policy-making and policy levers (Ball 1993, 1994). We have not, therefore, narrowly confined our discussion to policy texts, but have sought to describe the dynamic, contested and interactive nature of the policy process and the role of key players within it. When we have been trying to understand the diversity and complexity within governance, we have turned primarily to the writings of Janet Newman (2000, 2001, 2005). In addition to these external sources, we have also used our own conceptual work (e.g. Steer et al. 2007, Spours et al. 2007), to make sense of the latest round of our 131 in-depth interviews with 123 European, national, regional and local policy actors[3] carried out during the period January 2006 to March 2007 and 15 major policy documents mentioned by or affecting these policy actors. We examine policy change largely from the perspective of the policy actors we interviewed who have had to respond to top-down change by making sense of (or ‘translating’) rapid successions of politicians’ pronouncements, responding to restructuring, taking up new roles and responsibilities or even facing redundancy during this time.
From this evidence we suggest that the LSS has gone through two major stages of development and may be entering a third. As Figure 1 illustrates, its first phase could be characterised as a ‘top-down planning approach’ that spanned the period 2001-2004 and the second, from 2005-2007, the changes secured by Mark Haysom, Chief Executive of the LSC.
Figure 1. Phases of the LSS
Top-down planning approach2001-2004 / Top-down market model
2005-2007
- Unification of the new LSS
- Level playing field
- Area-based planning
- Some local funding discretion
- Promise of greater stability (e.g. 3-Year Plans and funding)
- Organisational ‘simplification’
- ‘Prioritisation’
- ‘Self-regulation’
- ‘Demand-led’ approach and funding
- Agenda for Change, Foster, Leitch…
The full character and force of a possible third phase, which may well be emerging as a result of the significantly increased emphasis on ‘demand-led’ funding, following the Leitch Report, together with the splitting of the DfES which effectively creates a divide between 14-19 education and adult learning, remains to be seen. We conclude this paper by attempting to make our own assessment of the significance of the newly emerging arrangements in the sector and to suggest a possible way forward.
WHAT ARE POLICIES ON LEARNING AND SKILLS TRYING TO ACHIEVE?
From 2001 to 2007, hundreds of policy documents relating directly to the LSS have been published by the DfES, the Treasury and the LSC. These have been supplemented by policy texts written by other national organisations and government departments, as well as by regional and local bodies, all of which have some bearing on how the sector is regulated and behaves. In addition, several influential government-commissioned enquiries (e.g. Tomlinson on 14-19 education and training, Foster on further education, Leitch on skills) have reported on issues impacting on the sector and added to the policy mix. We have logged some 331 policy documents that have been produced by or for organisations in the LSS and this has been done selectively not exhaustively.
How can we make sense of this plethora of policy and the impact it has had (or is having) on the shape and behaviour of the LSS? How can we tell which texts drive policy and policy-makers and which are merely elaboration or mood music? One way, and this is the approach we take in this article, is to focus on those key texts that policy actors themselves cite as important, the ones they use to explain or legitimate their views or actions. Using this approach, in this paper we draw on 15 recent policy texts, nine directly referred to by the majority of our interviewees and six more recently published texts that relate to or elaborate on issues raised in our policy interviews (see Fig.2).
Figure 2. Recent policy texts on the learning and skills sector
1)14-19 Education and Skills (DfES 2005)
2)Realising the Potential: A Review of the Future Role of Further Education Colleges (Foster 2005)
3)Further Education: Raising Skills, Improving Life Chances (DfES 2006)
4)Skills: Getting on in Business, Getting on in Work (HMG 2005)
5)Learning and Skills: the Agenda for Change (LSC 2005)
6)Framework for Excellence: A Comprehensive Performance Assessment Framework for the Further Education System (LSC 2006)
7)Prosperity for All in the Global Economy: World-class Skills (Leitch 2006)
8)The UK Government’s Approach to Public Service Reform (PMSU 2006)
9)Pursuing Excellence: The National Improvement Strategy for the Further Education System (QIA 2007)
10)Delivering World-class Skills in a Demand-led System (LSC/DfES 2007)
11)Building on Progress: Public Services (PMSU 2007)
12)Raising Expectations: Staying on in Education and Training Post-16 (DfES 2007)
13)Place-Shaping: A Shared Ambition for the Future of Local Government (Lyons 2007a)
14) Machinery of Government: Departmental Organisation (Cabinet Office 2007)
15) World-class Skills: Implementing the Leitch Review of Skills in England (DIUS 2007)
Skills and social justice: the twin ‘policy drivers’
The central message in all 15 policy documents concerns the importance of raising skills levels in the UK to ensure we remain economically prosperous. This assertion, which is clearly stated in the 14-19 White Paper, ‘If we are to continue to attract many of the high value-added industries to this country and to compete effectively on the global stage, then we need far more of our population to have high levels of education.’ (DfES 2005b: 16), is endorsed in the FE White Paper (DfES 2006) and continues to echo throughout the Leitch Report (2006) and the Government’s response to it (LSC/DfES 2007, DIUS 2007).
The second and, in the Government’s view, related key policy aim is for increased social inclusion and social mobility[4]. The Skills White Paper, for example, talks of the need for ‘a step change in productivity and social mobility’ (HMG 2005: 4).
Interestingly, these twin policy drivers resonate closely with European policy-makers’ views (European Commission 2006). Although, as one of our European interviewees pointed out:
‘for the UK it is always very important that the labour market is stressed, whereas other countries will say, “OK, that is extremely important, the labour market component, but education and training is also something which is for personal development, which is for cultural values and so on”.’ (Y4[5])
In English policy documents, it is clear that a direct link is being made between skills, employment and social inclusion. There is an assumption that the first leads to the second and on to the third, even though there are many who would question this assertion (e.g. Wolf 2002). Indeed, from close reading of these 15 policy texts it appears that the second aim of social inclusion is not only dependent upon, but also subordinate to the first aim of developing skills for economic competitiveness. Moreover, some of the policy actors we interviewed saw the two in tension with one another.
These twin drivers and the connections between them have, in fact, remained remarkably constant as the rationale for policy within the LSS in England throughout its whole lifespan. It is policy narratives, structures and mechanisms that have been the focus of change and turbulence and that have had greatest impact on the behaviour of the LSS to date.
HOW HAS THE ORGANISATION OF THE LSS CHANGED AS A RESULT OF RECENT POLICY?
When the LSC was established as a non-departmental public body in 2001, it comprised a National Council, located in Coventry, with 47 local councils across the rest of England. This structure only lasted until January 2004, when the newly appointed Chief Executive, Mark Haysom, announced the creation of a regional management team. This organisational change was seen as necessary both to simplify the reporting structure and to ensure the LSC had a presence at the regional level. However, this was only the first step towards the current structure of the LSC, which now comprises nine regional offices responsible for 153 ‘local partnership teams’ mainly covering the same areas as local authorities. The original 47 local councils were effectively decommissioned (although they cannot be finally wound up until the passage of the 2007 Further Education Act) and regional councils set up in their place[6]. This recent structure, which came into operation in Autumn 2006, is seen as part of ‘simplification’.
The process of ‘simplification’
The process of ‘simplification’ covers a number of organisational dimensions – the relationship between the DfES and the LSC, betweeneach of the levels within the LSC itself, its relationships with providers and how it works with other partner agencies in the LSS.
One of the major criticisms in the final report of the Foster Review of FE (2005) was of ‘micro-management’ by the DfES with regard to the LSC (p. 51) and by the LSC in relation to colleges (p. 52) leading to potential confusion between the roles of the two national organisations. According to officials we interviewed from the LSC and DfES, these two criticisms are now being addressed. The DfES role was described by one as being ‘to performance manage the national partners who deliver for us’ (WO7), while an LSC official asserted, ‘I would say we have a robust relationship with the DfES, which means we can be frank, but we also work together.’ (UA14).
But what about the way the new LSC structure operates at national, regional and local levels? Where does power lie and who makes the decisions that impact on local provision. The term ‘tight-loose’ was often used by our interviewees to describe the relationship between ‘what must be tight and nationally prescribed and where it is loose in terms of regional and local flexibility’ (UA15).
Far more of the non-LSC policy actors we interviewed in 2006/7 were positive about the LSC and the way it had delivered on its key performance targets for participation, achievement and quality than those we interviewed in 2004/5 before the organisational changes had taken place. Nevertheless, there was still concern about the capacity within the LSC; its lack of democratic accountability; its bureaucratic way of working; and whether it would be able to retain any independence from the DfES.
Yet more quangos
While the restructuring of the LSC has undoubtedly affected all post-16 providers within the LSS, it is by no means the only important organisational change to have taken place since 2001. Key national agencies have been merged (Ofsted and Adult Learning Inspectorate) and new ones have been born - the Sector Skills Development Agency (SSDA), Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) and the Quality Improvement Agency for Lifelong Learning (QIA). The policy actors we interviewed for this study differed in their views about the contribution that these new organisations would make to the LSS, although there was a general view that, as one person bluntly put it, ‘The less national quango-type organisations that we’ve got the better really.’ (UC17).
The establishment of QIA in 2006 was described by DfES officials as an attempt to clarify the reciprocal roles of the LSC, Ofsted and QIA in quality assurance and improvement within the sector. While one interviewee was very critical of the new organisation, describing it as ‘totally useless and a load of private contractors’ (V10), others were more charitable. However, there was a recognition that QIA had communication problems, that it was possibly too small to achieve its stated objectives and that it appeared anomalous as a national organisation responsible for quality improvement in an era when institutional ‘self-regulation’ was being promoted.
The SSDA[7] was set up in 2002 and charged by the Government to encourage the formation of SSCs to cover all employment sectors within the UK. While Government money was made available for this task, the SSCs were intended to be independent employer-led organisations which would support the Government’s skills strategy, improve National Occupational Standards and provide a forum for employers to articulate the skills needs of their particular sector though Sector Skills Agreements (SSAs). Latterly, they have also been given a much stronger role in the design of all vocational qualifications in their sector (LSC/DfES 2007). The majority of the policyactors we spoke to, and this included employer organisations themselves, were very sceptical about SSCs. The main criticism was that they are not, in fact, employer bodies and cannot, therefore, represent employer views, particularly in relation to small and medium enterprises. As one interviewee commented, ‘they are apparently owned by the sector, but they were set up and paid for by the government and their agenda is the government’s’ (ZA16).
So how has the organisation of the LSS changed as a result of recent policy? On balance, it appears to have become more centralised, with more focused targets and funding currently dominating other weaker trends that emphasise local and regional governance. Second, there is a continuing rhetoric of institutional autonomy, which is accentuated by the prospect of ‘demand-led’ approaches to funding. Third, the turbulence of the first three years of the LSS has continued, even intensified, throughout the last two, with continuous organisational change and, despite efforts at simplification, the introduction of yet more agencies to add to what has been constantly criticised as a complex sector. As one inspector commented: